#10 of 25 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

# 10 OF 25 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

"VERITAS" - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONE.BLOGSPORT.COM - SAT. MAY 12,2018

CHAPTER 3 - "AN EXAMPLE TO ALL" 43-47

    "The Order of Friars Minor, Capuchin, is the most conservative of the three men's religious Orders that trace their origin to St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181-1226), who in 1206 organized a community of men whose goal was "to observe the holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ by living in obedience, without property, and in chastity," Although Francesco's parents continually spoke of "making a monk," out of the boy, and although throughout his life Padre Pio was called a monk, Capuchins call themselves friars, or brothers, and are not a monastic but mendicant Order. The difference is one that laymen would find academic....

    

     A monk, by technical definition, usually spends his entire life in one specific religious house, whereas a mendicant friar may be assigned to any number of religious communities. Padre Pio, for example, who ministered all his working life in the province of Foggia, was unusual in that he remained for more than more than a half century in one friary. Most of his confreres moved several times during their career.... Padre Pio, like most of his colleagues, seldom if ever corrected laymen who called him a monk....

 

    Most of the friars in the Order which young Francesco Forgione entered in 1903 were comparatively young men. The Capuchin Order in Italy was just then recovering from more than two decades of suppression by the Italian government. The middle of the 19th century saw a tide of anticlerical sentiment swamp much of Europe. This was a time of swelling nationalism that would eventually explode in World War I. Since the Church had great temporal power and exerted political over much of central Italy, the Church found itself the scapegoat for many nationalistic politicians. During the 1860s and 1870s, the governments of France and Germany passed laws weakening the power of the Roman Church and suppressing religious orders. ...

 

    Camillo Cavour, the guiding force behind Italian unification, adjudged all contemplative Orders "useless and harmful," and Giuseppe Garibaldi, liberator of southern Italy from the control of the Bourbon family, called priests "wolves" and "assassins" and characterized the pope as "not a true Christian." Some Italian politicians, in fact, called for the army to storm the Vatican and throw the members of the College of Cardinals into the Tiber. ...

 

    The task of reorganizing the Capuchin province of Foggia, which comprised nearly two dozen friars, fell to the learned and spiritual Padre Pio of Benevento (1842-1908), who had ministered in England and India during the time of suppression.... He actively recruited young men to swell the death depleted ranks of the Order. He saw to it that the Foggia province maintained the ascetical rigor which prior to the suppression had earned for the reputation of one of the strictest Capuchin provinces in all of Italy. Before its dissolution, it was said that a goodly percentage of the friars had "died the odor of sanctity."  ....

 

    When Francesco arrived at Morcone, he was shown to a tiny cell in which there was a mattress filled with corn husks and supported by four wood planks, a little table, a chair, a washstand, a jug for water, and, on the wall, a wooden cross ... and other new novices, he was directed to spend several days in solitary confinement. On January 22, sixteen days after his arrival, Francesco was "invested" a religious. As he knelt at the foot of the altar before the master of novices, the formidable Padre Tommaso of Montesantagelo, Francesco's jacket was removed and these words were said, "May the Lord strip you the old man and all his actions." 

 

    As Francesco put on his Franciscan tunic, Padre Tommaso prayed: "May the Lord reclothe you in the new man who is created, according to God, in justice, holiness, and truth." As he put on the hood with its caperon, or small scapular, the novice master said: "May the Lord put the hood of salvation upon your head to defeat the wiles of the devil." As Francesco donned the belt, or cincture, the novice master prayed: "May the Lord gird you with the cordon of purity and extinguish within your loins the fire of lust so that the virtues of continence and chastity might abide in you." Then he  was given a candle. "so that, dead to the world, you might live in God. Rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light!".... 

      He was also given a religious name, in token of the fact that he was born again as a new man within "religion." It is not known whether Francesco Forgione had any input in the adoption of the name Pio. Some say that he chose it in honor of St. Pius the Martyr, whose relics repose in Pietrelcina.

George H. Kubeck